10 Iconic Video Game Heroes Nobody Admits Are Absolute Dicks

How did Kratos become a gaming mascot? Unlike other icons such as Crash Bandicoot, Mario or even recent faces like Nathan Drake, God of War's angry Spartan has never really been much of a compelling or distinctive personality.

Yet, he is forever brought up as one of gaming's "cool" video game characters. And yeah, the guy looks visually striking and the scale of the combat in all the God of War games really is mesmerising, but nothing Kratos does over the course of three releases (and countless spin-offs) indicates that he's anything other than an unlikable douche.

From brutally murdering innocent people to treating the woman around him like objects (you literally solve a puzzle by throwing a female slave into a cog mechanism), it's hard to get involved in Kratos' emotional quest for revenge when he's acting like a such an unrepentant caveman all the time.

With all this in mind, it's even stranger to see Sony Santa Monica recast him in their latest semi-reboot as a more gentle and thoughtful family man, as though he's ever shown an emotion other than pure, unfiltered rage.